Lyn #19 - Single Cut LP Jnr

[robin]

Well, this was going to be yet another Refurb but as I will be building a new body, sanding down the neck and reshaping the headstock, I figured she deserved a new Build Diary.



She started out as a JR-1DC Kit
https://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=2668



I have always wanted a Les Paul Jr and although this kit comes close all I really wanted was a single cut slab. Apart from the atheistics of a carved top she was never a comfortable guitar to play and was very neck heavy and always kept sliding, neck first, toward the floor. I had upgraded the P90 pup with a Lollar and that combined with the pup being too close to the bridge meant that she was always aggressively bright and didn’t suit my playing style. So out of all my guitars she was the forgotten orphan that sat in the corner while all the others got to go out.

It seemed a waste so I decided to scrap the body and use the parts for another build but before doing so I experimented with pickup location. After lots of trial and error I settled on the pickup placement that suited, and as there was no way of hiding what I had done I decided I would have a go at a relic.


She now sounds awesome, and is used regularly at church. If the new body doesn’t turn out I will go back to this:

[robin]

THE BUILD:
I have moved away from F and G style headstocks, so I scrapped the classic G style “open book” headstock for a style that I have used before.




New Headstoke shape

As with all my scratch built bodies she will be a laminate of pine (cheap) and Marine plywood (strength). During the build I will be using hand tools only.



The 3 layers of the body. Pine top and bottom and a marine ply centre core for structural strength. I have already cut a control cavity in the bottom 2 layers of the body and drilled the holes for the pot shafts in the top layer.




Internal routing has to be organised before I glue the body together. Being only single pickup it was easy this time and all I needed was a channel cut in the centre plywood layer to take pickup wiring from cavity to pup.



I learnt the hard way that trying to glue 3 layers of wood is a nightmare. So I make small locating dowels between each layer so that when gluing, all the pieces remain locked together. These are just bamboo kabob skewers.



Next glueing. Underneath this forest of clamps is the body.



Next step will be shaping the body.

Cheers
rob

[Sonic Mountain]

Nice one. Thinking about doing a plywood body next as I just want to paint it and it doesn't seem worth using anything fancy if it's going to be hidden.

[JimC]

Sonic, My first thought is that plywood leaves you with an awful lot of end grain to handle. No problem if you are going for a millimetres thick polyurethane finish, but otherwise it could be extra work. Also there's actually rather a lot of plywood in a 2in or whatever body, and you probably need a lot of layers. I think if I were going for a budget materials body I'd look hard at whether gluing strips and slabs of pine or something else cheap would be less work, especially if I could source secondhand timber, shelves, beams, that sort of thing. There's also the thing that the raw timber is not one of the major cost components unless you are going exotic. But an awful lot depends on your facilities of course.

Rob, I must admit I'm a bit bemused by the pine ply pine sandwich. How much strength do you think the body needs? Or is it protection from warping that's your key goal?

[Sonic Mountain]

I’ve previously used pine for a body and it works fine. It did however sink a bit where there are knots and it’s a bit splintery to work with. Finishing the plywood won’t be an issue for me, that’s one area I already had a good handle on prior to building guitars. A big attraction is that’s it’s easy to get in workable panels. Given how many commercial guitars utilise it, it seems like it would be worth a go. Some ways off committing to it at any rate.

[robin]

@Sonic
Yep, especially if you are painting it, plywood is a cheap solution. Before I built my first laminate guitar I searched through a quite a few sheets of normal ply and was surprised to see so many sheets that were warped. Marine ply on the other hand seemed a lot more consistent. But marine ply is way more expensive, but for me its only one piece of 200x300. I can get a few guitars out of one sheet.

@Jim
It's all about warping. Pine has a bad rap for that. I've built a few guitars now with pine/ply/pine and they all seem to be holding up well.

rob

[Simon Barden]

With ply, you could always go for a bound body and run a strip of very thin ply around the edge of the body, creating binding channels without having to do any routing and also avoiding having any end-grain showing.

[Simon Barden]

With the P90, did you try adjusting the pickup height? That has a lot to do with the sound. Not easy on a dog-ear as you need to use a different height cover and bend the metal mounting ears to suit, which isn't always easy. But it is a definite way of tuning the sound.

Vintage style wiring also helps, where the tone control is taken from the volume pot output, not the input. You can then turn down the volume without loosing treble and get a lot more clarity.

[robin]

Thanks Simon, I didn't try adjusting the height. I contacted Lollar after I bought the pickup and they recommended 2mm from poles to string.!! So it was set very high.

I have a few different spacers that I will try on the new body, I will also try vintage wiring. It will be a test bed of sorts, but if it is close to what I ended up with I will be happy.

rob

[robin]

Hey Colin, I was inspired a bit by this video. The first 5 min is probably all you need to look at. Now, if I could only play like Neville.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUdq59CRcxk

rob